So, just to get this thread back on track again. Is Marathon 4 coming or not?I think it's safe to say so many years after the whole contract thing, that if the game was ever being made, it got swallowed up by development hell.

Besides, Destiny 2 is coming. Got to love that jingoist propaganda that is the trailer. I might get it on PC if the reviews are good. I don't have a console, but I followed the whole thing from a safe distance and I must say I'm not very excited about it.

By the way RyokoTK I enjoyed reading your posts in this thread. Pretty spot on. I didn't realize there was a prequel to The New Order! I loved that game.

I suppose Marathon as a franchise is just not known enough amongst todays gaming community to make it worth resurrecting, but even if it were, Bungie would have to "popularize" it to appeal to the mainstream which basically means dumbing down gameplay/story and boosting graphics and violence. So I guess it's probably for the best that Marathon 4 will never see the light of day. Let it rest in peace and not fret about what could have been because let's be frank, we oldschool Bungie fans would probably not have been satisfied with the outcome anyway...

If anyone at Bungie shares those concerns, they could always pull a genre switch and have the hypothetical fourth installment be, say, a point-n-click/visual novel in the vein of The X-Files Game (the one on PC, not the PS2). Or a series of regular novels. Maximum story density AND you don't have to worry about appealing to the crowd that won't touch any FPS older than five years.

I'm yet to read a convincing argument as to how a next-gen Marathon sequel would work while being faithful to the original and not stepping on Halo's feet. I imagine that terminal text would be a bit much to bear for modern audiences so the obvious solution would be an AI that talks to you as you play- i.e. cortana- plus the whole AI going rampant/rogue was also done (pretty badly) in the later Halo games.. so getting some distance from that series would be pretty tricky.What made Marathon great for me was the atmosphere, the sense of isolation and the relatively still, quiet environments. Something to do with it being on Mac, with such a small community around it and most people having never heard of it added to that somewhat. I loved being in that ship, getting lost in those corridors, and I can't even say why exactly. The closest equivalent I can think of is Alien, with the slow pans and tracking shots of the interiors, and the sense of loneliness within. It's probably a personal thing, having been a fan of both as a lonely emotional 14 year old, somehow finding solace in those worlds- so the idea of a modern version of Marathon with (inevitably) a hundred things going on at once and 5000 player co-op play makes me sad..

Terminal text would have to be replaced with audio logs for modern audiences. But, does anyone even do audio logs anymore? I feel like they've already run their course; I think people are already tired of audio logs.

A fourth Marathon game would probably need to step away from the normal FPS genre and start to venture into the more horror-suspense category, not in the sense of having more gore, but in the sense of relying on a fusion of gameplay and aesthetic to provide a dark, suspenseful atmosphere.

In order for Bungie to justify allocating resources to producing M4, they would have to make it with the larger market of casuals in mind.

In other words it's going to have to suck in order to make money.

Best case scenario we might get an fps loosely based off of Marathon that has much better combat. This might actually happen because the combat in Marathon is like punching a cow in the ass for 30 minutes and should easily be surpassed especially considering what Bungie has learned making Halo.

The truth is Marathon has and always will be an obscure fps that the world at large doesn't know about. Which we should all be thankful for. I doubt this game will see the light of day. Most remakes depend on a large fan base oozing with nostalgia that will be stupid enough to hope that there precious franchise will get the treatment it deserves. Marathon does not have this. So no prospect of money? No remake.

I would rather see something new and original turned into a scifi horror fps with mysterious story telling elements that are never fully explained or revealed. Y'know kinda like Marathon.

When Destiny was announced and I saw the trailer I had high hopes. I never played it but as details started coming out and I realized what kind of game they were making... What a shame.

PerseusSpartacus wrote: watching the first few episodes of Rampancy.net's playthrough

I agree with B-star's assessments but I think it is misnamed, it should be Mass Effect: Botany Bay. That would make B-star's assessments be the game's logic.

PerseusSpartacus wrote:A fourth Marathon game would probably need to step away from the normal FPS genre

Then it wouldn't be Marathon.There won't be a Marathon 4 because it doesn't fit to the lowest common denominator. i.e.

alborada wrote: the atmosphere, the sense of isolation and the relatively still, quiet environments. ... The closest equivalent I can think of is Alien, with the slow pans and tracking shots of the interiors, and the sense of loneliness within.

e.g. Arrival, Ne Cede Malis, Second to the Last of the Mohicans, stylejust doesn't fit the current mode.

JED07 wrote:In order for Bungie to justify allocating resources to producing M4, they would have to make it with the larger market of casuals in mind.In other words it's going to have to suck in order to make money.

In my humble opinion, if you search through the Pfhorums and look for the topics about wanting to do a "remake" or an "update" to a newer engine, you will find behind the lofty goals a desire to take a current product, repackage it, and hit the big time and, of course, hopefully, make lots o money.

As opposed to those who actually make Marathon universe, Marathon style games, which takes a lot of effort. And do it for the Art.I personally don't think the new episodes need to be 20 or 30 or more levels. Five or six with a story would be plenty: a short story instead of a novel. A couple o more levels on Philtron's new effort would merge it quite nicely into Marathon thus making it a nice short story. Perhaps even a sort of prequel. Tycho X's would be a good short story too, a single complete event, and could be closed out in another level or two.Then there are experiments such as Treellama's Marathon: W'rkncacnter.

No one rewrites the Sherlock Holmes canon, but many write stories based on things mentioned or alluded to in it.

And I apologize to those whose scenarios I've enjoyed but not named here.

Any kind of official sequel or reboot would be cool. But my personal gaming fantasy - the game that if I had unlimited money I would buy a game developer (in this case Bungie) to make for me, but which in reality is never going to happen - would be some kind of sandbox/open world first person RPG (a la Fallout or TES) set in the Marathon universe. I've never played or even read anything about it so apologies if I have just described Destiny, but I don't think I have because what I have in mind would be very much set around the same locations with the same races depicted in the Marathon series, as opposed to just being a spiritual successor.

It would be too restrictive to set it on the Marathon itself, but perhaps it could be set in or around the time the events of Marathon 2 are taking place, against the backdrop of an the impending Pfhor invasion. In terms of location I could envisage it taking place in multiple locations - Lh'owon, Tau Ceti, maybe even Earth? Or it could be set in an entirely different time on an entirely different place, but still involving the same races (Pfhor, S'pht, the AI's in some capacity).

For me, the story and universe of the Marathon series applied to the gameplay mechanics of an open-world RPG, with modern graphics, would be a dream combination...

In fact, now that I think of it, I am struggling to think of any sci-fi/space themed open world RPG type games period. Has there been any?